So I was thinking the other day about why the fuck I dig horror movies so much. It's a weird thing to be a vegan and to enjoy watching movies whose whole nature revolves around violence and killing.

Partially it's just a matter of taste, of course. Who the hell knows why one person likes the taste of brussel sprouts and another person hates them?

But partially (and this was the epiphany I had this weekend) it's because I like how it transforms me back into being a little kid again.

I mean, when you're little, you allow yourself to go places of pure emotion: fear, love, sadness, anger. You don't curb any of that until you get trained to do so. You cry 'cause you fucking feel like crying, even if it's just 'cause you skinned your knee. You aren't so much concerned about who sees or what they think. You're scared of the dark or of ghosts and no amount of logic can calm that. You love people and things with pure unabashedness. That Rainbow Brite doll, you would give YOUR LIFE for her. You throw yourself to the ground and scream and holler and unleash rage and anger over whatever fucking little thing you want, body completely absorbed in the emotion.

Once you get older, you learn how to mask all these things: you try to hide your sadness, tears, anger, love, fear because you're an adult and a "productive member of society." And you can't so much get away with throwing yourself on the ground and screaming at the top of your lungs at the grocery store just because someone won't buy you stickers.

But horror movies: they let you tap into that again. EVERYONE IS THERE FOR THE SAME REASON. And you're ALLOWED to be afraid, to be silly and nervous, to scream at something that everyone knows isn't real. You can let go. You can access that purity of emotion without having to hide it.

And I like that.

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